


Things To Do Before We Die

by Aisalynn



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 12:10:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/650378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aisalynn/pseuds/Aisalynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1. Punch someone you hate in the face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things To Do Before We Die

_1\. Punch someone you hate in the face._

 

His fist met the man’s face with a satisfying _crunch_ , the smug smile the man wore replaced with a brief flash of smashed nose and lips twisted in a painful grimace before the man fell backwards over the table, spilled alcohol staining the clean gray of his Alliance uniform. 

“Whoo! That felt good.” Mal grinned and shook out is hand. 

“I’m sure it did, sir,” Zoë replied, eyes scanning the room. “And what do you suggest we do now?” Her hand inched toward her holster. 

He looked up, following her gaze to the back of the room, where six more officers were heading their way. “One thing,” he said, and the grin never left his face. “Run.” 

 

_2\. See someone you love perfectly happy._

 

“Zoë say’s we’ll be there in two days.” Kaylee was practically vibrating with excitement, jumping up and down on her toes and swinging her arms back and forth. Mal watched her with amusement. “Oh, Simon’s goin’ to meet my folks in just two days!” She looked up at Mal, suddenly anxious. “You do think they’ll like him, don’t you Cap’n? “

Mal hesitated. “I’m sure your folks’ll find the Doc to be nothing but… agreeable.” Frankly, he was more worried about what Simon would think of _them_ , simple country folk that they were. Society on Kaylee’s home planet was nothing like what Simon had grown up in. 

Then again, the Doc had come a long way since he first boarded _Serenity._ Even developed some good taste, as Kaylee here was proof of. 

Still didn’t mean he approved of him, mind. 

Kaylee must have caught on to his hesitancy because she stared hard at him, expression earnest. “You are goin’ to stay for the weddin’, ain’t ya, Cap’n? Not going to find some reason to go flying off, guns ready?”

Mal took in her face, which despite the small earnest frown, was flushed and healthy. For weeks now Kaylee had been bouncing and smiling around the ship, an energetic sunbeam in an otherwise sunless life. 

He grabbed her gently by the shoulders and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. And that’s a promise.”

 

_3\. Solve a mystery._

 

“A general. For the Alliance.” Mal’s voice was flat and angry.

The old Shepherd nodded. “And quite an influential one too. Some say that the Alliance would have lost many a battle if it weren’t for him.” 

Mal’s fists and jaw clenched. They’d decided to visit the monastery next time they docked on Persephone, to give them news about Book’s death and pay their respects. After all, it wasn’t like they had time for a proper funeral for him before, and Mal could still hear Book’s words in his mind. 

_How we treat our dead is part of what makes us different from those who did the slaughtering._

So he figured he’d let the Shepherd’s say their prayers and get some answers to a few questions while he was at it. 

Except, these weren’t exactly the answers he wanted to hear.

 

_4\. Have a near death experience._

 

Mal hissed and jerked. “Ow! Don’t you have anything to numb it?”

Simon made a sort of clicking sound in the back of his throat. “You saw me administer the hypo, but this is a gunshot wound, not a bug bite; its still going to hurt.” Mal twitched and muttered a curse in Chinese as Simon tightened another stitch. The bullet had hit his thigh this time, just half an inch from causing severe muscle damage. “You’d think you’d be used to this by now,” he muttered.

Mall grit his teeth. “Contrary to common belief, I don’t actually _like_ pain, and I don’t go getting’ myself shot on purpose.”

“That’s hard to believe.” Simon finished the last stitch and reached for the scissors. “This is the third time in as many months. Really, Mal, you need to stop getting yourself in situations where you have to be the hero.”

Mal leaned back and closed his eyes as Simon wrapped a bandage around his leg. “Aint tryin’ to be a hero,” he muttered. “Just tryin’ to get the job done.”

 

_5\. Mourn a friend.  
_

“You miss him, don’t you.” 

Mal turned in the pilot seat and watched as River made her way from the door to the co-pilot seat beside him. He didn’t ask her why she was up so late, or how she knew what was on his mind. Their nightly chats up here had become a sort of routine, and he’d long stopped questioning how she knew things she shouldn’t. Instead he looked around the bridge, dark and quiet except for the steady hum of _Serenity’s_ engines, and thought on how bare the console looked without the toy dinosaurs that used to be scattered all along it. 

“I reckon I do.”

River tilted her head slightly at him. “You’re surprised by that.” She brought her legs up on the chair, knees to her chest, arms wrapped around them, bare toes peeking out from the hem of her skirt. 

Mal sighed. “Not really. I guess… I’m just surprised at how much I came to like him.” He shot the girl a sideways glance. “I didn’t want Zoë to marry him, you know.” 

She smiles at him. “I know.” 

They didn’t say anything after that, just sat there, soaking up the thrum of the ship and view of the stars before them. That was the one good thing about knowing someone who could damn nearly read your mind, Mal thought. You didn’t have to talk much.

 

_6\. Fall in love._

 

Inara’s lips were red and her eyes were dark and heavy lidded with desire. He curled his hand into the polished ringlets of her hair and her breath came in quick hot gasps against his face. He could smell the peppermint tea she’d had just thirty minutes before every time she breathed. 

“Mal,” she whispered and he drew his thumb along the line of her throat, watching the skin move against it as she spoke. 

He wondered briefly, if this was how she looked with all her clients, if the flush he saw now on her cheeks was the same or if it had to be painted on, if the breathy sound of her voice and catch on the vowels when she closed her eyes and leaned her head back had to be forced, or if it was always like this with her. He didn’t want it to be. He wanted it to be different, wanted it to be _real_ with him and no one else. 

So when she opened her eyes and said in a voice that was weak and hoarse and not a protest at all, “Mal, we probably shouldn’t do this,” he just smiled and kissed her again. 

 

_7\. Lose love._

 

“Inara has moved all her things from her shuttle, sir. She’s preparing to leave.” 

Mal gave a sort of grunt. “Then let her leave,” he told his first officer without bothering to look up from the console wires he was twiddling with. Kaylee usually insisted on doing everything mechanical on this ship, but really, right now Mal was doing just fine. 

Zoë didn’t move. “You aren’t going to say goodbye, sir?”

He carefully untangled the wires, hands and fingers gently pulling and tugging on the knots and twists. “We’ve already said our goodbyes,” he said gruffly. When she didn’t move he looked over his shoulder to glare at her. “Go on and have your sobbing goodbyes if you have to, just hurry it up. We’ve got a lot to do if we’re going to make it to our next job on time.”

He turned back around to the wires but Zoë still didn’t move. Finally, she turned around and the sound of her footsteps echoed across the bridge. 

When she was gone he dropped wires in his hand, at a complete loss of what he was supposed to do. 

 

_8\. Laugh so hard you cry._

 

He clutched at his sides, desperately trying to catch his breath as uncontrollable laughter rippled through him. _Lao-tyen_ … He wiped the tears from his eyes and tried to breathe. Of all the things he expected to see when he walked into the room, Jayne Cobb dressed in a too small, bright orange, hand knitted sweater was not it. 

Mal took a deep breath and straightened from his doubled over position, only to take one look at Jayne and fall into helpless giggles again. 

Jayne flushed and tried to tug the sleeves, which barely reached mid-forearm--down. “Grown a mite bigger since my ma last saw me,” he muttered defensively. 

“Well, _I_ think it looks good, Jayne. You’ve got a matching hat and everything!” Kaylee shot Mal a dirty look when his laughter grew even louder at that. “Don’t you think so, Simon?” Kaylee’s tone was sharp and Mal could see the Doc visibly restraining his own laughter. Inwardly, Mal congratulated him on having more restraint than he did. 

“Uh, yes. Yes.” He cleared his throat. “It’s quite…quite dashing.” When Kaylee beamed at him and Jayne stood up straighter and pulled his hat further down Simon made a hasty excuse and left the room. Mal could hear his poorly muffled laughter even as the man hurried to the medical bay. 

Maybe not so much restraint, then. 

 

_9\. Have an impact on the world around you._

 

Kaylee and Mal stood close together, gazing at the newly painted _Serenity_ on the side of their beloved ship. 

“Do you think things are going to change when we go back, Cap’n?” 

Mal sighed. “I don’t know, mei mei.”

“But, we got the video out there. Everyone’s gonna know how the Alliance hurt them people.” 

Mal put an arm around her and drew her to his side. “Yeah, they’ll know. But the Alliance is powerful and has a lot of supporters. It might take even more than this to get people to fight them again.” 

A little line appeared between her eyebrows as she frowned. “Don’t you think there’ll be people like us? People who will try because it’s the right thing to do?”

The right thing to do, Mal thought, looking past _Serenity_ to the blank, dead landscape behind it, a pale and silent planet filled with corpses and ghosts. “You know Kaylee,” he said softly, pulling her closer against him, “I think here just might be.”

 

_10\. Do it all again._

 

Zoë crossed her arms and leaned a hip against the console. It was just her and Mal on the ship, Jayne the rest of the crew were on the planet, taking a short shore leave before they left, this time without Simon, Kaylee and River. 

It was turning out to be a very small crew. 

“Well, sir,” she shifted to look at him. “We’ve done just about everything there is to do in the ‘verse, even took down the Alliance a peg or too.” 

Mal leaned back in the pilot seat, a small satisfied smile on his face. “Yes. Yes, we did.” 

She smiled back at him and Mal was glad to see it. She didn’t smile as much as she used to since Wash’s death. “So what are we going to do now, sir?”

Mal put his hands behind his head, still smiling. “Keep flying, Zoë, that’s what. Keep flying. It might just be that we find ourselves more things to do.”


End file.
